The Australian Helicopter Industry Association has always proudly stated that over past decades the Civic Aviation Safety Authority's Aircraft Register has grown by
6 to 8% each year. (Or at least twice the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, and three to four times faster than General Aviation aeroplane fleet listing).
FISCAL 2013/2014 (1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014) showed an increase from 1,951 to 2104 helicopters, up by 153 registrations. This was an increase of
7.8% to 30 Jun ’14, which was a good result.
As an aside Australia has the second largest helicopter fleet in the Western World; so any fleet variations are questioned closely.
However, AHIA is concerned at the slump of growth during First Quarter of the current FISCAL Year. (July to September). Our fleet only increased from 2104 to 2110, or 6. This represents an annual
growth rate of only 1.14%.
WHY?
AHIA is conducting an investigation on behalf of their members and will provide a report ASAP. Some clues are that some major flying schools appear to have very low numbers at present, no doubt due to the need to sort out troublesome new CASR Part 61 Flight Crew Training requirements and associated costs which are hard to calculate due to changes flowing from the CASA/Industry working groups finding problems that need “exemptions”; some of these may incur extra costs during the transition period.
And as an aside, a major LAME training facility went into liquidation – and we need more technical people due to our ageing engineers and few trainees!
The AHIA study will be published in the next edition of Helicopters Australasia – a free e-newsletter – see AHIA website.
Putting aside the potential error of making too much of short-term data variations; the sudden change is unusual and we are watching with great interest.
As you can see below we are working with other government agencies that have to translate and implement the new CASRs into their language (or legal speak). In particular, schools providing courses for international students have to comply with CASA rules and Skills Council protocols in order to obtain approval to accept student visas or similar.
Rob Rich
AHIA Regulatory Review Coordinator for
Civil Aviation Safety Authority, Transport and Logistics Industry Skills Council (Aircrew) and manufacturing Skills Australia (Maintenance technicians)
E:
[email protected]